Where do I begin... don't get me wrong, as you see in the pros section, there are some benefits of working with Elephant. It is a unique work environment that allows fun and I appreciate that. However, there is a lot wrong with this company that really makes it an uncomfortable place to work after a while.
The company is only now 10 years old and has gone through a rapid growth over the years. A lot of high up managers are people with no actual experience in their roles other than being promoted from within which is concerning. Growth opportunities are exciting when people are qualified but I am honestly worried about the future of the company given that I feel like none of them really know how to run a company and it seems they are just grasping at straws to figure it out.
Most people in HR don't have any HR experience and that is really concerning. I don't feel comfortable bringing anything forward to this department because the people are not qualified and most of them were promoted from within after they had already built friendships with people in other departments. I saw mentioned in another comment that information in HR gets leaked out and from what I have seen this is true! Anything you tell to HR will get to one of these people and will be leaked out because they have personal friendships with other members of staff around the business that are not ethical. Peoples personal business gets around and confidential information gets leaked all the time. I really think the company needs to look into changing this so they can be more successful because right now myself and others do not feel comfortable talking to people that will absolutely gossip about their personal issues or about the issues they've reported. Elephant needs to look into hiring actual HR professionals to take over so people feel comfortable, this is really unlike anything else i've seen in any company.
Leadership promotions are really only given based on who you are friends with in operations and it's sad to see. It's very disheartening for someone like me who works hard and gets no where. I don't think I will ever get the time of day for a promotion. I do not believe the department leaders know how to be unbiased, it's all about who they were friends with when they were coming up through the ranks. Not about who actually does the best and works the hardest. Most of the managers in customer service are highly unprofessional and are only there because they are friends with someone at the top. Being friends wouldn't be an issue if managers knew how to draw a line. Sadly, that line isn't there and "leaders" get away with almost anything! They can sit on their phones at their desks, which is against PCI compliance and something agents always get yelled at for, and it's ok for them. There was person that was always on his phone and nasty with customers, they kept him around for so long, unreal! There are so many things like that scenario that we see an hear but gets covered up from higher ups. The leadership team in operations only shows what they want you to see and not what actually goes on in the day to day that the rest of us see. The higher ups allow things like this to go on, allows leadership to be lazy, and also allows them to continue that same behavior downward. The leadership teams are also close personal friends with some agents. I've seen that certain agents can get off the phones/take more breaks than others, get given opportunities for development, and get to pretty much get away with what they want too while the rest of the department is doing their work and getting in trouble for things that their friends get away with, like extreme attendance issues. On top of that, the people that they are friends with aren't even considered the best, yet they get this special treatment that goes unquestioned because of who they are in cahoots with.
In order to be better for the future, Elephant should consider moving good leaders around so this mess doesn't happen or at least hire some professional leaders externally to turn this place around. CS and Sales are just afraid to make changes in leadership for some reason but it is going to be necessary if Elephant wants to grow. I also hear "leaders" gossiping on the floor about agents and their business which makes me uncomfortable. How can I trust them with anything?
Communication is terrible and the training is a mess! Insurance is super complex and the rules that need to be followed need to be more simple but training makes this hard for us to learn and to do our jobs well. All of the answers I get are different from different people and training really seems to have no idea what is going on. The team again is led by someone who has a relationship with a higher up, See a theme? The team seems very inflexible and unorganized and it makes our jobs much harder. I wish the company would take this seriously and actually make changes for the better and not who knows who.
The claims department needs a lot of work too! A lot of the higher ups were booted out and we all thought claims would get better but it hasn't. The leaders in claims do not seem to care about customer experience from what I hear from my friends down there. We've all had a chance to hear claims calls and hear horror stories about the process. This definitely needs to be fixed for the company to be better. There is only so much sales and service can do to make the experience good before it goes down to claims and they just don't care anymore. They have so many files to work and never enough people that they use that as an excuse to give crappy service, you wouldn't believe the horror stories . Lots of people I talk to down there are very unhappy, we need some drastic change.
